asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the number of farmers who were heretofore engaged in milk production and are now availing of the beef subsidy.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Beef Subsidy.
24.
The statistics in relation to this scheme are not kept in such a form as would enable this information to be supplied.
What is the purpose of this beef incentive scheme? Is it to encourage diversification from milk production?
That is only part of it.
Does the Minister consider £12 a sufficient inducement to a dairy farmer to go into beef production?
I do not think it was ever held out to be that because, as the House will recognise, no one case may be quite comparable with another. Undoubtedly the £12 will be a help to those who switch from milk production. Whether it is sufficient to induce farmers to get out of milk and into beef is another matter. It was never intended to be a sufficient inducement. It was intended to help those who were thinking of going into milk, but who had not made up their minds, and those producing milk who were thinking that they would, perhaps, be just as well out of it. We had these two categories in the milk end of it in mind when we devised this scheme. Of course, over and above that, perhaps sufficient justification for the scheme on its own, is the fact that, if the question of the milk situation had never entered into this, the £12 scheme would be well justified as an encouragement to the production of more beef as such.
The Minister will agree that there are some farmers who as a result of the recent phased increase in the price of creamery milk now stand to lose and, if the beef subsidy scheme was sufficient to induce them, there there would be a change? Is the Minister further aware that a dairy cow costs the Exchequer approximately £27 to subsidise and, therefore, there is a case to be made for an increase in the beef subsidy from £12?
I have already made out all this sort of sums. In fact, I could give the Deputy quite a few more interesting ones. This is not answering the Deputy's own question, which I think he is attempting to do. Twenty-seven pounds per dairy cow, on average, is low. We pay more than that, probably nearer to £35 per cow, which gives added weight to the point the Deputy is making. It does not follow that it is, in fact, in the best national interest to give an equal sum to take a man out of milk production and put him into beef production because there are people who have not been in milk enjoying the £12 under this scheme and who would be entitled to enjoy the £27 or the £35 if it were raised. They are quite a number of thousands and the herds number hundreds of thousands that were never producing milk. Would the Deputy have us provide a scheme as an alternative to milk production for the milk producer and ignore the beef producer who has never been a problem in so far as milk is concerned? If we were not to do that, this would cost us immensely more than the Deputy seems to think.
What about those now getting a reduction in price?
(Cavan): Does it not all mean that the Government had no policy on beef or milk over the years, just bungling out of one mess into another?
If the Deputy would take a while off some day and read what the scheme is about and absorb it——
(Cavan): They are messing from milk to beef and from beef to milk. They do not know where they are going.
If the Deputy is in any difficulty, he should give me a few minutes and I will try to explain it to him. He will then see what an excellent scheme it is.
Would the Minister——
I am not allowing any further supplementary questions on No. 24.